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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392603">Five Facts about Zacharias Smith</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber'>Slumber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2011-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2011-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:01:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392603</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zacharias Smith is born Zacharias Isaac Smith on January 14, 1980.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>30-minute Writer's Block Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five Facts about Zacharias Smith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>i.</p><p>Zacharias Smith is born Zacharias Isaac Smith on January 14, 1980. He is the firstborn son of Abraham and Elisabeth Smith, distant relatives and not-quite-heirs to Hepzibah Smith, known to be a direct descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. Not many people know this considering Smith is a fairly common surname, and Zacharias likes it that way, even though he was not surprised in the least when the Hat Sorted him into Hufflepuff.</p><p>(He hates the color yellow. He always has, but it is a color associated with him regardless of this disdain. It is the color of his hair, the color of his House, the color of his robes.) </p><p>He has a happy enough childhood. His parents take him to many different places so he sees a lot of the world before he is even old enough to receive his letter from Hogwarts. He is never as interested in them, however, as he becomes when his father first takes him to a Quidditch game while they are in Cardiff for another holiday. </p><p>From there he is hooked for life.</p><p>He receives his Hogwarts letter the summer after he turns eleven, and he is not surprised at all by this. His mother wipes a happy tear from her cheek and his father takes a deep hit of his tobacco before he begins setting plans for the family trip to Diagon Alley. All Zacharias wants to know is whether his parents will allow him a broom his second year. (They say they'll think about it.) </p><p>He has been to Diagon Alley before so the trip brings no new surprises save for the murmurs at The Leaky Cauldron that Harry Potter was seen earlier that day and that he, too, is to start his schooling.</p><p>His mother hopes he might be Sorted into Hufflepuff so that Zacharias can be friends with him, but his father says it's likelier he'll be a Gryffindor as his parents were Sorted there. </p><p>Zacharias does not listen much to this conversation, because just then they happen upon Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and he wants to know if he can have a float, please and thank you.</p><p>ii.</p><p>When Zacharias is three years old his mother sits him down in the parlor, tells him there is something he must know. She places her hand on her stomach and, with his father's arms wrapped around hers, she tells Zacharias he is to become a brother very soon.</p><p>Zacharias is a little confused by this development. He wants to know where his brother will be coming from and how his parents know that for sure, but his mother tells him he's to have a little sister and Zacharias wrinkles his nose then. Can't he have a brother instead, he asks, and his father laughs. </p><p>Maybe next time, his father says, but his mother only raises an eyebrow. They whisper to each other and laugh in the secret, grown-up way they usually do when they don't think Zacharias is looking, and Zacharias asks them about the other questions he had. They tell him some story about a special magical creature that deposits babies down chimneys when a family has been really, really good, and they tell him that they expect her to arrive sometime in the next few months, although they do not know exactly when.</p><p>His mother wants to know if he has any names he'd like for his baby sister and he offers Baby as a suggestion.</p><p>Rebecca Catherine Smith is born on a bright May day. Zacharias does not know exactly what happens, only that he is woken up in bed by his father, and that they are hurrying to the hospital (what about the chimney, he asks, and his father mumbles something about the creature going to the hospital instead) and then he is made to wait outside a room for a really long time.</p><p>When he is finally asked to come in, he sees his mother with a swaddle of clothing. Come meet your sister, she coaxes Zacharias, and he peers at her curiously before deciding that she is boring.</p><p>She grows up less so, but she's always after his own toys and his toy broom and she nags him constantly, and to make matters worse, when she goes to Hogwarts she is also Sorted into Hufflepuff like him. </p><p>He never forgets to let a day go by without reminding her that she is annoying, until the day when the Battle of Hogwarts takes place and he realizes, just as the rest of Dumbledore's Army are fighting, that he hasn't seen Rebecca in a really long time. He fights through a throng of first years shouting her name, and when he finds her, cowering and hidden behind one of the classrooms, he hugs her hard and never lets her go.</p><p>iii.</p><p>He watches Quidditch for the first time when he is six years old.</p><p>His first Quidditch match featured the Wimbourne Wasps and the Appleby Arrows. His father grew up an Arrows fan and so he tells Zacharias everything there ever was to know about Quidditch. He spends the entire afternoon fascinated, watching the players as they zoom around the pitch and score with Quaffles and avoid the Bludgers. He screams when the Chaser nearly makes another goal, claps gleefully when the Keeper stops an attempt by the other team's Chaser, and yells with the crowd when the Arrows' Seeker catches the Snitch. </p><p>He is still excited and happy and he spends the afternoon telling his mother all about the amazing game he just saw, and he never quite forgets it.</p><p>They don't go to matches all that often but he and his father often listen on the wireless. He sits on his father's lap, rapt and excited, as the commentator makes the calls and lets his own excitement carry him away. The Arrows win the Championship after a fifteen-year drought when he is ten years old; it is the happiest memory of his life and one of the many that he uses to conjure his first Patronus.</p><p>iv.</p><p>Zacharias Smith meets Justin Finch-Fletchley not at Hogwarts Express, not at the Sorting line, and not at the Feast that night, but afterward, when he descends into the tunnels leading to the first year boys' dorm and he finds himself sharing a room with four other boys. He recognizes Ernie Macmillan from a couple of parties his parents have attended--their parents are good friends, but he's never liked Ernie much--and the other two boys, Stephen and Wayne, are unfamiliar to him as well. </p><p>Justin is the first to say hello, the first to introduce himself. Justin talks a whole lot, and he is only too happy to tell them about his old home and how he was brought up by Muggles (he is Muggleborn, after all) and how he nearly went to Eton but he thought magic sounded much more fascinating at the end of the day. Zacharias tries to tune him out but he only nods and responds where appropriate.</p><p>He should not have gotten along with Justin as well as he does--he talks too much and is far too happy, he is not interested in Quidditch at all and he teases Zacharias for being cranky in the mornings--but Justin never does go away in the end. He is always there to help with homework or to whine about revisions, he shares his compartment at Hogwarts Express when Zacharias is running late again, and there is always a seat for him at The Three Broomsticks whenever they go down to visit Hogsmeade.</p><p>Zacharias wonders sometimes why Justin seems only too happy to put up with him but he isn't one to complain. He only notices sometimes that Justin never talks about girls and that whenever Zacharias does, Justin changes the subject immediately.</p><p>When he finds Justin snogging a Ravenclaw boy in the dorms one afternoon after Hogsmeade (Zacharias ate something that didn't agree with him so he decided to go back early) he finally understands why. Justin avoids him for as long as possible until Zacharias finally corners him after class one day and forces him to listen.</p><p>It's okay, he tells Justin, and even though now he sometimes still wishes Justin doesn't get into too much detail about his liaisons with other guys, he is looking forward to being Justin's best man when he gets married next month.</p><p>v.</p><p>If Zacharias had to choose he would have gotten into Quidditch after leaving Hogwarts, but the truth of it is he knows he's not nearly as good as any of the talent that the teams are considering. He doesn't really know what else he's good at either--his marks in most of his classes are piss-poor, and he suspects he only gets by most of them because his father is friends with most of his professors.</p><p>Nevertheless, after the battle is over and seventh year passed, he finds himself aimless for most of the summer.</p><p>His father finally introduces him to the Daily Prophet editor, tells Mr Vane that Zacharias is willing to do anything and everything so long as he gets to stay out of the family house eight hours a day for five days a week, and Vane gives him a quick once-over before sending him over to work the presses.</p><p>It is back-breaking, humiliating work for a wizard of Zacharias' standing (or a wizard of his family's standing, rather) but Zacharias finds he doesn't mind as much. He takes to the press quickly, and when the proof reader takes ill one night he even helps look over the copy. </p><p>He goes into Vane's office one day and asks if he can please be given a chance to write. Vane looks like he's trying to decide between laughing and refusing him outright, but to his surprise he offers Zacharias the St Mungo's beat. It is tedious work, he finds, as hardly anything that exciting happens in St Mungo's these days, but he takes to it with enthusiasm and dedication, and soon he is covering the Auror beat too. He finds he likes the task of finding the truth, of digging down to the fundamental facts, and he wonders how he doesn't figure it out sooner.</p><p>He is a Hufflepuff after all. It is the perfect job for him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please consider donating to local organizations who support trans individuals in your area.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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